Internet speed bandwidth test download#

If your internet speed is consistently poor, speed tests might reveal a more pressing issue with cabling or equipment that needs to be fixed. It doesn’t matter whether you’re paying for 100Mbps or 1Gbps if you’re only getting half of what you pay for at any given time, then you might as well save some money and drop to a cheaper tier. Internet service providers sell packages at various speeds, so it’s worth making sure you’re hitting those speeds to justify the cost. The main reason is to find out whether you’re getting the performance you pay for.

There are some good reasons to test your internet speed periodically. It’s up to you how you interpret your results: is your “real” speed the speed you get in the day when you and everyone else are working? Or would you rather know the theoretical maximum, when most people are tucked up in bed? Your ISP would certainly pick the latter. I’ve seen results that drop as low as the 200Mbps range in the day, while nighttime performance consistently hits the 1Gbps barrier. CloudFlare’s speed testing tool shows far more information and repeats the test several times, plotting your results on a graph.

Internet speed bandwidth test download#

For example, simply shows your download speed until you opt to see more (where you get your upload speed and latency). Some services are vague in their reporting. Distance seems to affect the reported speed, so you might find that servers closer to home report faster speeds (and certainly lower latency). Some might not even have a server within hundreds of miles of your location.īecause there are so many variables involved, different services will give you different results. Some speed test services let you choose a server, others give you no choice. You will encounter some variability when running different tests on the same service, particularly for providers like which use different servers depending on where you are. Your internet service provider might even have its own speed test service.

There are plenty of internet speed test services to choose from, with, , and CloudFlare being some of the most well-known options. So how can you know for sure, and does it matter? Different Speed Tests Report Different Results Cable internet is faster than DSL because it uses coaxial cables that have a higher bandwidth than phone cables. DSL internet tops out at just over 100 Mbps, and its electrical signals tend to degrade in quality over long distances. Do you know how fast your internet connection is? Depending on which service you use, you could get vastly different results. It can’t handle the same amount of bandwidth as cable or fiber.